Cogs and Wheels

I haven't forgotten about my Directorate fleet for Firestorm Armada... well maybe I did for a short while. This is the Directorate Judgement Class Battleship produced by Spartan Games. As with the frigates I've opted for a very basic red and black paint scheme. Somehow I still manage to make it look terrible in the photo.

This has been finished for a while, but I've just started cleaning up my final ships for this fleet. I'm aiming to finishing everything up by this weekend. Hopefully, I'll be successful so I can move on to my ever increasing backlock.

A while ago a bought a couple of starter fleets for Firestorm Armada, the space combat game from Spartan Games. True to form, I never got around to painting anything. However, Spartan has recently released new ships for the game, including some very impressive dreadnoughts. Needless to say I was tempted to order some, but I felt guilty about buying more when I already had so many of their beautiful figures sitting around unpainted. Strangely, I actually did something about it.

These are Enforcer class frigates from the Directorate faction. The Directorate line has a flying saucer / Star Trek style to it. These were undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black. The raised, armour-like surfaces were basecoated with Citadel Red Gore while the stuff in between was painted Citadel Boltgun Metal. The engine exhaust was painted Citadel Sunburst Yellow, but if I could do it again I'd probably go with a blue. Everything (except the engine) was washed with Citadel Badab Black and the red surfaces were dry-brushed with Citadel Blood Red. Overall, I like how they turned out. Plus they're a lot easier to turn out than 15mm tommies.

This pre-Christmas season is being called the best for video games in recent memory. Certainly, a quick look at Metacritic reveals a myriad of well received title in the past few weeks. My interests lie mostly in the racing genre, which was graced with Forza 4. Unfortunately, I don't own an XBox and refuse to spend cash for a second gaming console.

The next most anticipated racer of this season was Need for Speed: The Run. I've had mixed reactions with the recent NFS titles. I enjoyed Shift as a hold-over until Gran Turismo. Hot Pursuit was among the most enjoyable arcade racers I've ever played. However, I was disappointed with Shift 2; the handling models were awkward, if not broken, and the online multiplayer was severely flawed. That said, I was looking at The Run as a successor to Hot Pursuit and was planning on picking a copy up on launch day.

My concerns about The Run began during E3 when news started spreading the the game would include quick time events (cut-scenes where you're expected to continue pressing buttons) and that the game would be built around a story. I love narrative as much as anybody, but when I boot up a racing game all I want to do is drive fast cars. Stories beyond working your way up to a championship always seem to fall short. My concerns were allayed, briefly, after playing the demo. I was bit frustrated by what I felt was excessive understeer in the Lamborghini, but was very impressed by the cinematic and incredibly fun mountain race. After playing the demo, my intent to buy remained firm (read on...)

I recently earned the platinum trophy for Superstars V8 Racing, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the game. It's a racing title available on the PSN for $10 in North America, although I believe it was released much earlier as a retail title in Europe. According to its website it's available on the PC and Xbox as well. I feel it rests comfortably on the sim side of the realism spectrum. However, even with all the assists on you'll still need to navigate the track with restraint.

The game is supposedly based on an Italian series that I've never really heard of. I have seen a few races from an Australian "Superstars" series, which I assume is similar. In the game you take on the role of one of the series' actual drivers and take the wheel of their car. Most of the cars are actual models, but it seems the publishers couldn't get a license for all of the makes (e.g. Mercedes seems to be "Scorpio" and Chrysler "Barricade"). I'm no expert on these models, so I can't say how accurately they handle, but they do feel different in ways that make sense. You'll notice the difference between driving an AWD audi and a RWD BMW. The Audi RS4s and BMW M5s occupy the top of the field and will probably be what you drive the most unless you're looking for a particular challenge (read on...)

So as promised I'm posting some pictures of some of my Flames of War miniatures. These will be the core of my Moro River campaign Canadians (and British).

This is my troop of Sherman IIIs I plan on using. I'm going to add markings for the 44 RTR once I get the 4AB decals in. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not sure how to do the serials for these figures.

This is my Vickers MG platoon. I've painted them according to the Italy colour guide in the back of the North Africa book. However, from the pictures I've seen 1CID were usually wearing their brown jackets, the khaki shirts weren't exposed. I suppose that's to be expected in a battle fought in December. I'm not proud of the basing job, it was my first attempt at basing 15mm figures. I plan on revisiting it when I base my rifle platoons (read on...)